


By thy own hand do you choose your fate

by Rensong



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avenger Loki, Awesome Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Coulson lives (though he doesn't really show up much), Don't piss Pepper off, Everyone is snarky, Extremis Pepper Potts, F/M, Gen, Humor, Little bit of angst, Loki Has Issues, Loki has daddy issues, Mostly Fluff, Nightmares, Ship Loki with all the things, Snarky Jarvis, Snarky Loki, Snarky Tony, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, snarky Natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4677248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rensong/pseuds/Rensong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, alternately, All the things that never happened in the world that never was (but could have been)</p><p>or, alternately alternately, How Natasha bullied Loki into becoming an Avenger - and some of the challenges a fallen Trickster God might face in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. there but for the grace of gods

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a Five Things fic, but the Things multiplied. Thus, it became a series of interconnected (mostly) one shots a bit unevenly distributed over the course of several years instead. With that in mind, some of the chapters are quite short.

(there but for the grace of gods)

.

_“Look at this!” Thor yells over the sound of battle, hand fisted tightly at Loki’s throat. “Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?”_

_“It’s… It's too late,” Loki gasps. “It's too late to stop it.”_

_“No. We can, together.”_

There’s a split-second of hesitation, the barest pause. Thor changes his grip, the hand he had wrapped tight in the fabric at Loki’s throat loosing and shifting to the back of his neck, drawing him closer until their foreheads almost touch.

“Please, Loki,” he pleads, his voice breaking . “Please… You are my brother. Tell me I haven’t lost you yet again.”

There’s a sensation in his chest, terrifyingly similar to falling, but this time... this time Loki chooses not to let go.


	2. these prison we build deep

(these prisons we build deep)

.

Black Widow may be the super spy and Intel gatherer (and a lying liar who lies. And stabs people in the neck with needle things), but Tony is still the engineering and security genius. Fury claimed the prison is in fact Hulk AND god proof, but since Fury was also a lying liar who lies, Tony isn’t about to trust him to contain Loki’s string bean green ass, either.

Which is why he’s down on the containment level, ignoring the god stalking around his prison while he hacks the security with his padd and starts to give it a few special Stark touches.

Loki, apparently, doesn’t take kindly to being ignored.

“Come to see the monster is safely in its pen, have you?” he sneers.

Tony didn’t even look up from where he was scanning the security readout. “You’re not a monster, you’re a kid with an inferiority complex who threw a tantrum that destroyed _my fucking town_ because you were pissed at Daddy.” 

“I also helped save it, if you recall,” Loki snarls back. 

“Right, forgive me if I don’t immediately buy your sudden change of heart.” He taps the screen, upping the voltage on the cell window a bit because he was feeling vindictive and Loki was ticking him off. “You see, I know monsters. No superpowers necessary, just plain old humans who took out entire cities because they were an inconvenience. One of them was a man I trusted with my life and who I loved like a father, so you can understand how disconcerting it was when he _cut out my fucking heart_ – and I mean the quite literally, by the way – so he could use it to fuel a whole new kind of arms race and put crazy powerful weapons into the hands of people who wouldn’t _need_ a giant alien army to destroy the world.

“You’re not a monster. A monster implies that you’re someone or something to fear, when in reality you’re just a spoiled child who couldn’t handle the truth and took your anger out whoever happened to be in your way at the time.” He looked up, finally, staring Loki in the eye. “How very human of you.”


	3. to hold the sorrow of our loss

(to hold the sorrow of our loss)

.

Loki sits quietly in his prison for almost three days before the tedium gets to him – he did help save the world in the end, after all; the least they could do was give him a book to read. 

Thus, well before dawn on the third day of his incarceration, Loki does what he does best – he disappears. 

Just as it is no great challenge to project his image wherever he wishes, neither does it take much to hide himself and his energy signature from the cameras and sensors covering his cell from all angles, laughing silently as the gullible humans fall for the same trick Thor and his Asgardian comrades had stopped falling for centuries ago. The befuddled guards swarm into his prison with weapons drawn like so many angry bees, truly staring right through him as, with a light-footed swiftness born of centuries of practice at being unseen, he walks out the door they leave wide open behind them.

Free at last of the irritating hum of energy that hindered (though, he thinks smugly, still could not entirely block) his abilities while confined, Loki wraps his magic about himself like a cloak and, through several jumps, teleports himself as far from Manhattan and SHIELD and the insufferable attentions of Thor as he can possibly get without a portal to allow him to jump between worlds.

…

He spends the next few weeks living in the lap of luxury at an Indonesian paradise on stolen identity (there is a little known but rather well off drug runner in Columbia who will become quite upset when next he reviews his monthly statement), blending easily at night into the endlessly celebrating youth the area is known to attract and spending his days on the white sandy beaches, sipping mixed drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Which is why it is so irritating to return to his condo after an all-night bender with a cheerfully obnoxious group from Ireland, surprisingly tipsy from trying to keep up with their frankly inhuman ability to imbibe copious amounts of alcohol, only to find the Widow sitting calmly in the in-suite kitchen, drinking his ridiculously expensive coffee and paging through the battered copy of Poetic Edda he had left next to his bed the night before. 

The very tiny buzz he had managed to gain disappears as if it never was, and he shoots her a glare that had cowed entire worlds for denying him even that small pleasure.

The quim doesn’t even have the courtesy to look up.

“Hollander translation?” she asks, ignorant of his increasing ire or – more likely, simply choosing to ignore it. There is no hint of condensation or disbelief in her tone, but the question maddens him none the less.

“Call it an appeal to my vanity,” he feigns indifference, going about peeling off his liquor-stained and smoke infused clothing as if he wasn’t the least bit deterred by her sudden reappearance in his life. “A comedy in errors and picking apart of everything you lot got wrong; if only Lord Hollander were still alive so I could thank him personally for the hours of uproarious laughter he has granted me in his pros.”

The comment is enough to draw her attention, though she remains silent behind him, considering.

After a moment, she asks, “And when we got it right?”

Loki pauses briefly while reaching for a fresh shirt; he had forgotten about the pocked scar on his left shoulder, faded by time but no doubt clearly visible to the assassin-spy. He flinches unwillingly at the memory of the serpent’s venom, burning through him like acid as it dripped endlessly onto his vulnerable skin. 

It is but a fraction of a second, however, and he doubts even the Widow’s sharp eye catches the twitch. “Coincidence and lucky guesses, nothing more,” he replies pulling the soft cotton t-shirt over his head and hiding the traitorous scar from sight. “Why are you here, Natalia?” He uses her given name as a barb and as a threat. _I know all your secrets,_ it says. _I can hurt you, make it so you never know peace again._

She shrugs, the picture of non-concern with the majority of her attention once again on the yellowed pages beneath her fingers. “Fury wants to talk to you,” she answers distractedly. “Coulson probably wouldn’t mind a few words, either.”

Loki allows himself a small resigned sigh. It was a bit of a long shot, after all; even in his limited experience with the woman, he gets the impression that threatening her is about as useful as trying to scrub oneself with sodden toilet tissue.

“If I may borrow one of the delightfully crude idioms of your kind, Director Fury can go fuck himself,” he says instead. “And Agent Coulson shot me with experimental weaponry; I’ve no wish to give him any further opportunities.”

“You had just stabbed him in the back.”

“Only a little; if I wanted him dead, he would be.”

“Something tells me he would disagree.” She closes the book at last, sliding gracefully out of the chair. “I’m also here to let you know that your patsy just got arrested by the FBI, so you may want to reconsider your current living arrangements soon.”

“And you’re offering? Thank you, but I think I’ll pass on the small windowless cell for the time being; florescent lighting is absolutely ghastly for someone with such a lovely fair complexion as I.”

“High-rise suite, actually; Stark wasn’t happy, but Fury bribed him with unlimited access to all the Chitauri salvage.”

“A prison masquerading as a palace, perhaps, but a prison none the less.”

She shrugs, one shoulder lifting gracefully like a ripple in a pond, an unconscious mirror of the ballerina she never was. “If you choose to see it that way; there will be security measures in place of course – Thor, for one, along with an Asgardian bracer that he claims will make it uncomfortable for you to use more than the lowest levels of magic, and whatever energy-limiting field Stark and JARVIS come up with." Her eyes sharpen, meeting his without fear and no small amount of threat of their own. “We aren’t stupid and we won’t leave ourselves vulnerable.”

“As I said, a prison,” Loki sneers.

“A second chance,” she argues. “And one that allows significantly more freedom than you can expect to find anywhere else.”

“I beg to differ; I am currently experiencing quite the marvelous amount of freedom, wouldn’t you agree?” he says, spreading his arms wide to encompass the suite around them. “Sand, surf and all the delicious frozen drinks I could wish for. What makes you think, even for a moment, that I would give up all of this for a leash and a cage in your gloriously ugly castle in the sky?”

“Because no one wants to run forever. Not even you.”

Before he can give her another sneering reply, the music and merry-making wafting through the open windows on the ocean breeze is suddenly overrun by a series of panicked shouts in the distance, and an air of discontent settles over his little island retreat.

He looks back at her, feeling irrationally betrayed.

“I did warn you,” she says, slipping past him to retrieve a small handbag tossed carelessly into a chair by the window. “I’d say you have about twenty minutes to disappear again.”

He snarls and turns, but she’s already gone.

…

It should have been easy. This is what he _does_ , he disappears; he leads everyone on a merry chase and enjoys himself considerably in the process. A race against the odds, perhaps, but one in which the odds are not only always stacked in his favor, but also strategically placed in his opponents path to allow him an even greater advantage when the blundering idiots run right into them.

Earth but one insignificant planet and he has all the powers of his not the least bit insignificant abilities at his disposal. It should be easy. Which makes it all the more maddening when it most certainly _is not._

He calls her a week later from a decrepit back-street London phone booth. He doesn’t bother with pleasantries.

_“You wretched vindictive quim!”_

“Tsk. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Not recently, no, because this past week _I’ve barely had time to wipe my own arse_ before becoming overset with gun-wielding bilgesnipes swarming through whichever hotel or hole-in-the-wall – and I mean that quite truthfully; one of them was _a bloody hole in a wall_ – I’ve take up as temporary residence. Human trafficking and illegal weapons trade, those I actually found quite reasonable albeit extremely inconvenient. But an anonymous tip on a possible underground swine-racing ring? Really?”

“The _Livestock vs. Life_ group takes swine very seriously.”

“You are a lothesome harpy and I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Takes one to know one. When you and Babe get tired of playing shepherd to your brethren, you know where to find us.”

…

As one last act of defiance before submitting to his magical leash, he chooses the friskiest of the lot and sets it loose in Natasha’s bedroom. 

She names it Daisy and coos over it quite disgustingly. Not even a week passes before the beast becomes something of a team mascot.

Loki doesn’t even know why he bothers to try anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Norse Mythology, there was a point when one of Loki's punishments was to be be chained to a large stone while a snake drooled venom all over him.  
> http://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/the-aesir-gods-and-goddesses/loki/
> 
> Also, because Bored Panda is addicting and awesome, in my head this is totally Daisy  
> http://www.boredpanda.com/pig-identity-crisis-dogs-virginia/


	4. and all the promises we failed to keep

(and all the promises we failed to keep)

.

Loki never put much stock in the human tradition to celebrate the passing of a year – one more year of life, one more year of wedded bliss. Another year at their place of employment, another year since their furry shedding companion beast of choice started making a mess of everything… it all seemed quite pointless to him. How utterly dreary it must be to count one’s life in the passing of years.

That does not, however, do anything to explain why he is hiding in Iron Man’s workshop trying to get drunk on pitifully weak Midgardian spirits, staring at the tear-away calendar he stole from Darcy’s desk. 

The date is circled in neon green, the page liberally decorated with yellow lightning bolts and the smoking remains of a decapitated robot in blue. Dancing stick figures surround it, vibrant in alternating shades of purple and pink.

One year ago today, a nothing little slip of a town in New Mexico was all but destroyed by his hand.

(and his brother slain and his once dearest friends broken and wounded and dozens of innocent lives lost; the litany goes on, but he’s long since learned how to blot it out, if only for a time)

One year ago today the Bifrost was broken and he fell.

_(and fell and fell and fell)_

The calendar goes flying across the room with enough force to knock over one of the tool chests, chest and contents falling to the floor with a satisfying clang of metal. Loki ignores the dirty look Dummy gives him (that a robot without a face can still manage a dirty look is, he supposes, another notch to Stark’s genius, but he’d never say such a thing out loud) and takes another swig of the Widow’s favorite vodka. He knows full well that she would eviscerate him if she found out, but Loki’s always been one to live dangerously.

Of course, it helps that Natasha and the Hawk are off on assignment somewhere far away from here and that he’ll have plenty of time to replace the bottle before she returns. Living dangerously is one thing; suicide by Black Widow is quite another.

He’s finished the vodka and is about halfway through the workshops depressingly under stocked bar (“I may have gotten drunk and almost blown myself up once. Or twice. Or four times maybe? I know Pepper definitely cut me off before I made it to six, at least”) when Stark walks through the door, so focused on the padd in his hands that it takes him a good ten minutes before he even notices Loki’s unkempt figure slumped in the corner. The resulting double-take is almost comical.

“Jarvis, why didn’t you tell me there was a drunken god in my workshop?”

“I did, Sir. Twice.”

“You did? Huh.”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“And why is there a drunken god in my extremely secure workshop that requires a very complicated pass-code to enter?”

“Though I may be the most advanced system on the planet, Sir, I have yet to develop a lock or lock-out protocol sufficient to deter a transubstantiating god capable of translocation, especially when he’s quite intent about it.”

Loki’s smile is all teeth as he salutes their resident guardian spirit (and occasional prison warden) with the bottle in his hand, the magic-inhibiting bracer in several pieces on the floor beside him.

“My, aren’t we sassy today. You should get on that, J. You’re reputation is at stake here.”

“Of course, Sir. I’ll add it to my To Do List.”

Directing his attention back to Loki, he asks, “I suppose telling you to ‘Get the fuck out’ would be about as useless as telling Dummy to make me coffee?”

Loki responds with a sneer and takes another drink. 

The bottle far too steady for his tastes, and he once again curses the weak swill the Midgardians try to write off as liquor.

Stark looks around, taking in the overturned tool chest and scatter of tools Dummy had only partially managed to clean up before the machine became distracted by some other task. _Like father, like son,_ Loki thinks, chuckling bitterly at his own mental wanderings and studiously ignoring the echoing ache in his heart. 

Eventually Tony notices the calendar where it lies a few feet away from the mess, paper leaves hanging lopsidedly off its cracked plastic base.

He picks it up, looks at the date on the front page, then looks back over at Loki crumpled up in the corner surrounded by empty bottles. Then he walks back out of the workshop, taking the broken calendar with him and leaving Loki to his misery.

The doors swoosh shut behind him and Loki laughs again, if only because it is beneath his dignity to cry.

Only a few minutes pass, however, before the door opens again and Stark returns, fingers hooked through the handle of a sturdy brown jug with an old fashioned closure of wire and cork at the top. He leans casually against the wall beside Loki, deft fingers unhooking the wire and pulling the cork free before he hands it down.

“Asgardian Mead,” he says by way of explanation. “I mooched a few jugs worth last time Sif and her Merry Men Three came down to party with Thor. Thought it might come in handy eventually with all the resident Super Soldiers and PTSD that run rampant around here.”

Loki is too shocked to speak at first, and when he does the resulting “Thank you,” is spoken with honest gratitude instead of mockery and sarcasm he usually endeavors to maintain.

It is an unfamiliar sensation and he isn’t sure he enjoys it.

Tony shrugs, waving away the gratitude like it was nothing and gesturing vaguely across the room. “There’s a cot in that little cubby over there if you need somewhere to crash post-over indulgence. No puking on my stuff, though, or I’m calling Thor to come handle you.”

Sneer firmly back in place, Loki is opens his mouth to deliver a suitably scathing remark on Thor’s ability to handle anything…

“And then I’ll tell Natasha you stole her booze.”

… and closes it again before the scathing remark can break free.

“That’s what I thought. Later, Almira.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> List of Loki’s known abilities and powers:  
> http://godofmisfortune.tumblr.com/powersandabilities


	5. architect of our own design

(architect of our own design)

.

At first, Loki’s regular presence in Stark’s workshop is merely a way to irritate the human. The two are quite well matched when it comes to the ability to annoy those around them and Loki takes great fun in making the man grit his teeth and bite his tongue (but never for long) before he launches into an attack of his own. 

After a time, however, the workshop becomes a retreat of sorts, somewhere to hide when Thor is being particularly… well… Thor, or somewhere to flee when nightmares jerk him cruelly from his repose, heart racing and his arm raised, hand clenching at nothing but empty air.

After the third time Tony walks in to find him curled up in the corner, he declares “I already have enough useless machinery lying around here – yes, I am definitely talking about you, Dummy – so if you’re going to be all up in my space, the least you can do is make yourself useful,” and sics the machine he refers to as “Butterfingers” on him until the little bot manages to bully him into fetching tools.

Loki accepts with fairly good grace; while he was never an artificer himself, he grew up with just as much respect for the Masters as anyone on Asguard did. As Heimdall was always happy to remind him as a child, it is never wise to mock those who would forge your weapons – or who know best how to reprogram the heat settings on your bath.

As their tentative truce on shared space continues, Loki finds himself rather unwillingly drawn into the process itself. The artificers on Asguard had their own brand of magic, imbibing their creations with power and spirit that eventually led the artifact if not the artificer themself to go down in legend. Most Midgardians, on the other hand, still scoff at even the idea of magic – a mindset that remains even after ample proof otherwise, and which often causes Loki to roll his eyes and use his magic every time the opportunity presents itself just so he can watch gleefully at how uncomfortable it makes everyone – and depend solely on science and technological engineering in their creations. Though he still believes them to be fools for their voluntary denial, the fact that they have accomplished so much _without_ the use of magic is rather clever in its own right.

Ignorant, but clever.

…

_The Bridge is shattered and Odin hangs helplessly over the Void. Loki grips him tight around the wrist, so tight he can feel the bones grind against each other, but still his hold falters._

_Odin looks up at him, single eye filled with betrayal and sadness. “Why, Loki?” he asks, voice barely more than a whisper. “You were my son."_

_Then his hand slips free and he and falls and falls, all the Nine Realms falling with him. The sound they make as they crumble is almost enough to drown out Loki’s screams._

…

“I get it, you know?” Tony says all of a sudden, standing beside hollow-eyed Loki the next morning as he tinkers with some contraption that looks like a cross between a Midgardian Expresso machine and a smaller version of one of the Allfather’s flying chariots.

“Get what,” Loki asks wearily, slumped over the workbench with his nose buried in a gloriously large cup of coffee. He flicks his eyes briefly to the machine, then hands over a spanner of the proper dimensions before being asked.

For his part, the engineer doesn’t even pause in his tinkering, accepting the spanner and delving right back into the bowels of the machine. “You and Odin, putting everything you are into trying to do something, _anything_ , so that maybe one day he’ll look at you with something other than disappointment.”

Loki shoves away from the workbench, spanner set falling to the floor with a clang. “Don’t you dare claim to understand, mortal!” he snarls, and somewhere across the room glass shatters. With his luck, it’s probably the coffee carafe.

He grits his teeth and tamps down on his powers. “Your brief human lives are nothing but an eye blink to us,” he continues scornfully. “Odin’s lies and secrets had already been festering for millennia before you or your father was even born, so don’t you _dare_ assume you could ever possibly understand.”

The outburst is enough to distract Stark from his project, if only for a moment. “Great, good for you,” he says looking up, not the least bit cowed by Loki’s obvious fury. “So you’re sell by dates are more in line with Twinkies than they are with chop block chicken.” He waves the spanner around in a gesture that encompasses the building as a whole. “It doesn’t matter if your two years old or two thousand, Daddy Issues are universal in this Tower. I won’t list them because, hello, Daddy Issues Numero Uno right here and I don’t do Feelings, but I’ll tell you this much for free - Odin is a king. It’s his job to look at the bigger picture, especially since the Asgardian bigger picture has a crap ton of other realms it has to work into the equation. Yeah, he screwed up a few times and he definitely won’t be winning any Father of the Year awards, but he loves you. Pretty sure any one of us would love to be able to claim the same.”

He focuses on the machine again, twirling the spanner absentmindedly before diving back in and taking Loki’s silence as an invitation to continue. “Sure, he kept things from you. He’s a king, that’s what they do. But do really think he loves you any less now that the truth is out? It was his truth to begin with, after all.”


	6. forged in the fire of victory verses error

(forged in the fire of victory verses error)

.

In the bullshit move that seems to be becoming his trademark, Stark grabs the Bastard Lizard Mystery Bomb and jets for the sky as fast as he can, overriding all the safety protocols (again) and ignoring the alarms buzzing in his ear. He doesn’t know whether to be relieved or worried when Jarvis doesn’t even argue, just continues to monitor the altitude they gain as the clock ticks down. If his recitation gets a little more frantic the closer the countdown gets to zero, well… Tony really can’t blame him there.

With a little less than ten seconds left, he stops long enough to heave the bomb as hard as he can into the air above him, inertia and his own interrupted upward momentum causing it to shoot up far higher than it would otherwise. Then he turns on his heels and jets away as fast as the armor will allow, hoping like hell that the distance will be enough.

Iron Man by his very design is no stranger to falling. Technology, no matter how ingenious, will eventually fail, something that Tony Stark has been made painfully aware of over the years. Which is why the Iron Man armor is designed to take a horrific amount of damage while keeping the frail human body within it relatively unscathed. Battered and bruised, perhaps, and maybe a bit broken here and there, but alive and (hopefully) not vegetable. Can’t really ask for more than that considering his line of work.

Most of the time, the armor is enough. As the air explodes too close behind him, though, and he gets knocked ass-over-teakettle by the shock wave, he worries that this time might be the exception.


	7. to the hearts we best align

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly ridiculous hand-wavy movie-esque medical science ahead. Don't judge, Hollywood does it all the time.

(to the hearts we best align)

.

Iron Man falls. It is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. But as the explosion rocks across the sky, so high up that the clouds partially obscure it from view, Iron Man falls and this time there is no hope of anyone getting there to catch him.

Unwillingly, Loki feels his heart stutter briefly in his chest. He knows something of falling, after all.

…

Tony is alive, he’s fine, just FINISH THE DAMN JOB because no way in hell are some puny Star Trek Reject Space lizards going to pull a fast one on the god damn Avengers, they’d never live it down! 

No one believes him, of course – Loki perhaps least of all. Fate and destiny had always been more his mother’s realm, but since he fell, he feels the passing of time more clearly than anyone. And he knows that, buried beneath a several tons of brick and rubble, Tony’s time is running out far too quickly.

They finish the job anyway because the Reptil’e were attacking a hospital and not finishing it wasn’t an option, all of them trying (and failing) to not notice as his voice over the radio becomes more and more strained and liquid.

Twenty minutes later, the last lizard ship goes down in an explosion of green fire and lightning. Loki doesn’t even wait long enough to see where it crashes to the earth – nor, he imagines, does anyone else, based on the increasingly irate orders being yelled at them all over the radio – before he wraps his power around himself and translocates to the crater of broken cement and twisted rebar where Iron Man was supposed to be.

Hawkeye is already there, hefting a piece of debris free of the pile and ignoring the smear of blood he leaves behind on its surface; if he is the least bit surprised when Loki materializes beside him, he doesn’t let it show. 

The two exchange the barest of nods before diving back into the wreckage, whatever distrust and betrayal that remains between them set aside in the frantic quest to free their buried companion before time runs out.

Hulk and Thor arrive in tandem, Widow riding calmly on the beast’s back. War Machine and Captain Rogers are not far behind, and the task of removing the rubble from their fallen comrade goes significantly quicker after that, but still he fears it isn’t quick enough.

Ten minutes pass and Tony’s constant, irritating wash of words over the radio fades to naught but the occasional pained, shallow gasp for air. Five minutes more and even those fade away; it’s another two before they can pull him free of the wreckage, the arc reactor lying cold and dark in his chest. 

In the back of his mind, a clock starts ticking down.

_tick...tick…tick…tick…tick…tick_

With a roar that is part despair and all rage, Thor rips the armor from Iron Man’s chest like tinfoil, but there is no life to be found within the mortal man’s heart. (one minute) 

_...tick... ...tick... ...tick... ...tick... ...tick..._

Failing to fill his lungs on his own, Natasha tips Tony’s head back breathes for him. Stark will no doubt be quite upset to realize he missed the experience once he awakens.

(And if some small voice in his head tries to replace “once” with “if”, Loki is quick to banish it lest it tip the scales further into disfavor). (two minutes) 

_... tick ... ... ... tick ... ... ... tick ... ... ... tick ..._

Loki wraps his fingers around his Tony’s wrist and calls on his Ice Giant heritage. If he can lower his body’s core temperature, they may yet have some time. (three and a half)

_... ... ... tick ... ... ... ... tick ... ... ... ... tick ... ... ..._

Steve shouts and gestures, grabs a sooty, scorched and still slightly glowing Pepper as she lunges for the fallen man. (TONY!!!) Loki knows her touch burns right now, but Steve doesn’t let her go. (four minutes)

_... ... ... ... ... tick ... ... ... ... ... ... tick ... ... ... ... ..._

The medical team arrives. Natasha moves aside to let them take over, but her eyes are bleak and her face is pale beneath the concrete dust that coats it. Loki doesn’t let go, either. (five)

_... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... tick ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ..._

They strap thin plastic pads and wires to Stark’s chest. The machine beeps, charges, tells everyone to stand clear.

His body jolts, arching against the earth. Loki’s hand is back around his wrist as soon as he settles to the ground once more, but he knows before the machine confirms that there is no pulse beneath his fingers. (six)

The cycle starts again and Pepper falls to her knees, weeping. A better man, perhaps, would go to her, but Loki has never been good at being the better man.

The machine warns everyone clear again. Another jolt, another pitiful mechanical spark that would never be enough. (seven minutes)

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 

“Brother,” he says quietly, ignoring the hopeless faces as the worthless Midgardian medical team went back for a third round. “I’ve mind to do something less than wise and could use your assistance.”

Thor catches on significantly sooner than Loki would have given him credit for. “Our first altercation with the Man of Iron. You believe he is strong enough to survive without the protection of his armor?”

“I believe he is already dead and thus it cannot hurt him any more if we fail.” 

Thor nods, rests his hand on his brother’s shoulder and calls the storm.

_……(time’s up)......._

Loki can feel Thor’s power flowing through him, burning like the lightning it is and setting all his nerves ablaze, but he has withstood worse pain in his long years. He channels the power, hones it, concentrates it into the palm of his free hand where it sparks and swirls like an earth-bound star.

Using a wisp of their combined power, he shoves everyone still working over the body clear in a significantly less polite manor than the thrice-cursed Midgardian machine.

“Your time on this pitiful Earth is brief enough, Anthony Howardson,” he says viciously, pressing his glowing palm to the reactor in Tony’s chest. “I’ll not have you leave it prematurely, not as long as I still have use for you. Now _breathe!_ ” 

The energy pulses and Iron Man lights up like plasma globe, arching against the ground. There’s a pained grunt and sudden gasp for air, followed by ragged coughs and the clatter of metal as Tony rolls to the side. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he rasps a few seconds later. “You have horrible bedside manner. And you totally just called me Howardson to piss me off, didn’t you.”

There is a collective release of breath, the wilting of muscles battle-primed and tense relaxing as the death blow never falls.

“It worked, did it not?” Loki sneers, trying not to look as if the only thing keeping him from joining Stark in the dirt is Thors’ hand still firm on his shoulder.

He is saved from further response as a still slightly smoldering Pepper throws herself on top of the prostrate man, utterly disregarding the sharp bits of pulverized armor cutting into her knees and arms. 

“I hate you so hard right now, you ungrateful self-sacrificing ASS! I am donating all of your power tools the community college for this, do you understand?!” She carries on as such for several minutes, enough verbal venom spewing from her mouth that even the Hawk winces once or twice. No matter how poisonous the words, though, her hands remain gentle as they smooth over him, searching out other injuries and applying soothing heat to slowly bring his core temperature back up to normal.

Thor kneels down beside him, squeezing Loki’s shoulder briefly before pulling him into a loose embrace. “Well done, brother,” he murmurs next to his ear, and just this once, with the rest of the team sufficiently distracted, Loki doesn’t push him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, “continuity” and all that; if Pepper is all Extremisized, Tony should be arc-reactor free by this point. BUT, if the tag scene is to be believe, Tony was working on stabilizing Extremis several weeks (if not months) before he was able to fix the formula and apply it to Pepper, and then it was another undefined stretch of time before he used it himself. THUS, this particular scene could totally fit somewhere within that block of time – Post Extremis Pepper, but Pre Arc Reactor Free Tony.  
> That’s my story and I am sticking to it. Humph. –foot stomp-
> 
> One more chapter in this particular story tangent. It's already written for the most part, I just want to tweak it a bit before posting. This is actually a far better stopping point than that one is, but Pepper hasn't had nearly enough opportunity to be Awesome yet. ;)


	8. lest the betrayed become the betrayer

(lest the betrayed become the betrayer)

.

While Soul Eaters and psychic vampires were never anything more than a frightening tale to the people of Midguard, to those descendant of the Aesir they have always been a rare but terrifying reality.

So when one such demon breaks free of its prison and make its way to Earth – an almost elemental being, born in the dark of the Void and which feeds on the innate life power that lies within everyone, particularly the Aesir born as they are of legend and magic – well, suffice to say, the situation does not bode well for any of them, much less the only two Aesir who happen to be available for lunch at the time.

They manage to survive, of course – by the skin of their teeth, blind luck and the grace of a conveniently placed crate of pineapple and coconuts, if he had to take a guess. Granted, Loki is unable to verify as he was mostly unconscious by the time the actual battle was met, but based on previous altercations (and scent of pineapple wafting from his cloak), he doubts his assumptions are very far off. 

To coin a Midgardian phrase, ‘any battle you walk away from’ and all that drivel – or, loath as he is to admit it, get carried away from by an entirely too smug Iron Man. He does, however, take some solace in the brief, woozy, upside-down vision of Thor tossed awkwardly over Captain America’s shoulder like a giant sack of turnips, and his last thought before passing entirely into oblivion is how dearly he hopes someone thinks to take a picture. 

…

Then there is the return to the Tower itself, and facing the wrath of an over-protective and quite incensed Pepper Potts. Given the choice, Loki would much rather take on the soul sucking vampires.

“Seriously, Pep, baby, I’m fine. Only a few bruises from when I fell—“

“You fell?!” she screeches, skin starting to glow and the temperature in the room increasing a few degrees. Apparently Loki isn’t the only one for which falling is a touchy subject anymore, and that even the sedate and unflappable Pepper Potts has a breaking point.

“Only a little, I swear! I was only a few stories off the ground when they sucked the Arc Reactor dry—“

“THEY SUCKED THE ARC REACTOR DRY?!” The contents of the metal waste basket beside the couch ignite, though Steve is quick to take advantage of his serum-enhanced reflexes and snuff the blaze with his shield.

“Pep, I swear, I am fine! No more mechanical heart, remember? We fixed that!”

“You fell and the arc reactor was sucked dry and YOU’RE FINE?! LAST TIME THAT HAPPENED YOU WERE CLINICALLY DEAD FOR SEVEN MINUTES!” Across the room, the decorative fireplace wooshes to life in a very impressive fireball, the sudden heat more than enough to shatter the formerly pristine and beautifully etched tempered glass surrounding it.

“But not this time! Not even close, I swear to god! I swear to _two_ gods, even! They can vouch for me… well, okay, technically they were sort of unconscious during most of it, but still! I was nowhere close to dead!” Tony panics in the face of his lady love’s obvious wrath, his eyes zipping frantically around the room, searching for a means of escape. 

In desperation they latch on to Loki, and he has maybe a tenth of a second to realize his imminent betrayal.

“But Loki totally got his soul sucked out!” Tony points out accusingly.

“Coward!” Loki shouts back, but that’s all he has time for before Pepper is on him, fluttering touches and exclamations of distress and the occasional glowing shower of sparks, like being smothered by a swarm of well-meaning fire pixies.

“Will you please _desist_ ,” he demands in an embarrassingly high voice, drawing on the very last dredges of his exhausted power to blink himself free of the chair in which Pepper had him trapped. He reappears some small distance behind it, wobbling significantly but maintaining just barely enough dignity to remain on his feet without assistance.

“I assure you, My Lady,” he says once the room has (mostly) stopped spinning. “It is nothing a little rest and refueling won’t be able to cure.”

Pepper gives him a look that would put the Allfather’s fiercest glare to shame. “They _sucked out your soul_ and you expect me to believe a little FOOD will fix this?!”  


The wastebasket, still smoldering slightly, bursts back to life.

“We did put it back,” Hawkeye offers into the fray, only to wilt considerably when Pepper turns the burning glare onto him. 

Then, because sometimes retreat really is the better part of valor, Loki deflects with “Thor got his soul sucked out as well,” and flees once her smothering concern is sufficiently distracted.

He takes it as a victory that he only careens off of one wall and a door jamb in his exodus, and Jarvis, kind all-seeing soul that he is, already has the lift doors open for him.

He despises coconut and it’ll be weeks before his armor stops smelling like a pina colada (based on that alone, he would wager that bit was all Hawkeye), and if previous experience is anything to judge by it will be equally as long before the rest of the team stops hovering in their own way.

But… Here, in the safety of his rooms with no one privy to his thoughts but himself, perhaps he can admit that there are certain circumstances where it is nice to have a reliable team at your back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so Pepper was perhaps a little hysterical and definitely not quite the calm and collected Bastion of Cool I typically try to maintain, but I figure we all have our epically bad days and she's had a harsh few weeks/months/years. If anyone is deserving of a well-earned freak-out, she is.
> 
>  
> 
> Finally, I am NOT promising that there will be more, I'm really not. I totally have my serious face on while I am saying that and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up - I am notorious for being a horrible updater, as anyone who has read any of my (read: only) Long Fic can attest.
> 
> But, I will allow that there are a few ideas I'm still tossing around and poking at a bit (but ONLY a few) and I do still have four stanzas that can be used for chapter titles. So, you know, SERIOUSLY NOT PROMISING ANYTHING... but there is the teeniest, tiniest spark of hope I suppose.


End file.
